The other day I was killing time between connecting plane fights in the United Club at LAX, and I stumbled across a link to Paul Gottfried’s review [VDARE.com link added] of Brad Birzer’s fine new biography of Russell Kirk that appeared on the VDARE website. Gottfried is always interesting and highly readable, though usually idiosyncratic.(This is where Hayward posted the screenshot above. The line he references isBut when I clicked on the link, this is what came up (pay close attention to the bolded explanation below the blue HTML link):
Not allowed to browse Militancy/Hate and Extremism categoryHayward bravely continues
VDARE is unquestionably controversial, and perhaps nativist, but by no means should it be classified as a “Militancy/Hate and Extremist” website. Seriously—a site that runs a review of a university press-published biography is blocked? I wonder what other right-of-center websites are blocked by United?also noting
The final irony here is that the article in question contains an attack on Power Line and meThis of course makes his chivalrous defense even more impressive.
I say his stance is brave because PowerLine has a lot to lose. As I noted last year in Selma Commandeering Provokes POWERLINE To Risk Kosher Status, link to VDARE.com!
PowerLine is deemed sufficiently house-broken to be linked to occasionally by news aggregators like Real Clear Politics and The Drudge Report – which are clearly under orders never to link to VDARE.com. We hope [they] can get away with this.Actually discussing VDARE.com politely is obviously far more dangerous.
Late last year Mark Steyn was outraged to find steynonline.com is banned on United. James Fulford pointed out the screenshot Steyn displayed indicated he had previously been looking at VDARE.com too. However, in the light of Hayward’s discovery it may have been wrong to assume this was over the United service.
The fact is, internet repression is increasing.
I ask again: Can Free Speech (And America) Survive A Minority-Dominated Supreme Court?
